This invention relates to white pan bread and rolls as found in supermarkets and like retail outlets in the United States. Such bakery products including specifically white pan bread (which accounts for 79% of all bread made in the United States).sup.1 are predominently made by either the sponge-dough or the continuous method. Standardized formulas for white pan bread as prepared by such methods, and also by the straight dough and the so-called "no-time" dough procedures, are set forth in the following table. FNT 1. "Wheat Chemistry and Technology", Y. Pomeranz, American Association of Cereal Chemists, 1964, Page 676.
TABLE 1 ______________________________________ "STANDARDIZED" WHITE BREAD FORMULAS Sponge/ Straight.sup.1,2 Dough.sup.1 Continuous.sup.2 No-Time.sup.3 ______________________________________ Flour 100 100 100 100 Water 65 65 67 60 Yeast 3.0 2.5 3.25 3.0 Yeast Food 0.2-0.5 0.2-0.5 0.75 0.5 Salt 2.25 2.25 2.0 1.75 Sugar 8-10 8-10 7.0 5.8 Fat 3.0 3.0 3.0 3.0 Milk Solids 3.0 3.0 2.0 2.0 Softener 0.2-0.5 0.2-0.5 ______________________________________ Authority: .sup.1 "Wheat Chemistry and Technology", Y. Pomeranz, American Associatio of Cereal Chemists, 1964, Page 676. .sup.2 "The Bakers Digest", J. Moncrieff and A. G. Oszlanyi, August, 1970 Page 44. .sup.3 "The Bakers Digest", L. Smerak, August, 1973, Page 12.
While virtually every authority will preface a review of a "standard" formulation by saying that some minor modification or variation of ingredient proportion is to be expected at each locality or plant (depending on the flour used, type of bread desired and other factors), the formulations are surprisingly similar, particularly with respect to the two key ingredients: sugar and fat. Thus, the proportion of sugar in the standard formulation for white pan bread is within the range from 6 to 10% on the weight of the flour, whereas the proportion of fat or shortening is close to 3%, ranging from about 2.5 to 3.5% on the weight of the flour.
Standard formulations for yeast leavened rolls are virtually the same as those described for bread, the principal difference being the higher proportions of sugar and shortening..sup.4,5 Specifically, the proportion of sugar is within the range from 10 to 13%, whereas the proportion of fat or shortening is within the range from 6 to 8%, both on the weight of the flour. FNT 4. "Mechanized Soft Roll Production--Hamburger Buns, Hot Dog Rolls and Parker House Rolls", by Harold Mykles, Proceedings of the American Society of Bakery Engineers, Mar. 5-8, 1951, Pages 201, 207. FNT 5. "Bun Production By the Continuous Mixing Process", by George W. Trum, Proceedings of the American Society of Bakery Engineers, Mar. 8-10, 1971, Page 106-7.
In these standardized formulations, "sugar" is used in the usual sense of sucrose or dextrose (corn sugar). For various reasons as noted below, the standard white bread and roll formulations do not include lactose.
Commercial lactose, or milk sugar, is typically made by concentrating liquid whey from cheese-making to about 50% solids and then cooling to produce lactose crystals. The crystals are collected by centrifuging, washed, redissolved in water and then dried, or recrystalized to increase purity and dried. The resulting lactose is much less soluble than sucrose or dextrose, is not fermentable by baker's yeast (so as to contribute as a nutrient to the dough fermentation), and has only 15% the sweetening power of sucrose. Thus the use of lactose in bread or rolls, either as a sweetener or as pure carbohydrate, has been greatly limited.
It is worthy of note that lactose does find its way into yeast-leavened products, indirectly. Thus non-fat milk solids (50% lactose), and dried whey (75% lactose) are both well known ingredients in bread and rolls. However, bakers have had to overcome known loaf-volume depressing effects of these ingredients. Cereal chemists have evidence that lactose is a principal factor responsible for this loaf-volume depressing effect..sup.6 Consequently, lactose would seem to be very undesirable as a baking ingredient, particularly in white bread and roll formulations. FNT 6. See "Use Of Whey In Baking", by E. J. Guy, Proceedings of Whey Products Conference, June 14-15, 1972, U.S. Department of Agriculture.